Axis Dance

Session summary Fullness Training

Axis Dance Company

📅 Date: 7th November 2025

🟠 Session context & tone

• End-of-cycle call: closure of the Fullness process with AXIS; brief check-ins and a reflective wrap-up.
  

• You shared honest snapshots: long rehearsal hours, travel and moves ahead, injuries managed with care, and creative highlights.
  

• Main goals of the session: re-anchor why cognitive training matters, celebrate progress, and explore what limited implementation and what to refine moving forward.
  

🟠 Check-ins (highlights)

• General state: feeling good but tired — 12-hour days, little sleep, consciously regulating your nervous system to avoid staying in “attack mode.”
  

• Creative life: enjoying the creation process; therapy and Emotional Training helping you feel more open and grounded.
  

• Health: neck spasm resolved; minor asthma flare managed with breathwork; hips improving with PT.
  

• Professional context: multiple Nutcracker shows and a paid university residency in January 2026.
  

• Life transitions: excitement for new team members, upcoming moves, and family time during the winter break.
  

🟠 Core framework reviewed (Paul Conti’s pillars)

• Generative drive: state where you feel creative and proactive.
  

• When dysregulated, you drift into aggressive (irritable) or pleasure (comfort-seeking) drives.
  

• Staying too long in those states leads to envy or demoralization (“why bother?”).
  

• Six pillars of mental health explored: character/defenses, conscious/unconscious, values→behavior, hope, salience, and self-awareness.
  

• Practicing agency and gratitude builds peace and contentment — more stable than chasing happiness.
  

• Fullness works by training breath, vision, balance, and thought systems — the mechanisms that regulate both internal and external focus.
  

🟠 What worked for you

• Integrating short 10-minute blocks before class and after lunch was the most effective structure.
  

• Using box breathing and cooling techniques during high-stress moments.
  

• Labeling emotional states (“aggressive vs pleasure drive”) helped intervene early.
  

• Notable improvement in patience and emotional regulation during rehearsals and teamwork.
  

🟠 What got in the way

• Screen friction: accessing exercises on small devices was difficult.
  

• Cognitive overload: balancing work, ASL, choreography, and admin reduced available focus.
  

• Academic feel: written tasks triggered resistance; felt less physical and more theoretical.
  

• Overwhelm cycles: saying yes to everything, then withdrawing when overloaded.
  

🟠 Celebrations & specific wins

• Full recovery from neck pain; improved hip mobility.
  

• Professional success: new paid projects and consistent creative growth.
  

• Calm and composure during live pressure situations.
  

• Shared regulation moments within the team strengthened collective focus.
  

🟠 Program engagement reality check

• Only a few reached Unit 7; two members completed all units.
  

• This points to format fit issues, not lack of motivation or discipline.
  

• Your feedback will help shape the dancer-first version of the program.
  

🟠 Recommendations (keep, adapt, simplify)

• Recommendation: Keep the 2×10 protocol (before class + after lunch) for breath, vision, and vestibular resets.
  

• Recommendation: Use micro-switches — open vs tunnel vision, physiological sighs, gentle vestibular resets.
  

• Recommendation: Build a red alert script: ice to neck → 3 sighs → 1 min box breathing → widen vision → continue.
  

• Recommendation: Replace screens with printable 1–2 page cheat-sheets summarizing daily practices.
  

• Recommendation: Simplify reflections to quick checkmarks (✔ breath, ✔ vision, ✔ balance).
  

• Recommendation: When resistance appears (“I deserve rest or comfort”), label the drive, breathe, and choose between soothe or stabilize.
  

• Recommendation: If a drill doesn’t fit, scale it — shorter, slower, or lighter — instead of skipping.
  

🟠 Action plan for AXIS Dance

• Implement Daily 2×10 protocol:
  

• Morning (before class): breath, vision, vestibular (10 mins total).
  

• After lunch: repeat short version.
  

• ⏳ Start: 10 Nov | Run: 5 days/week until 6 Dec.
  

• Create a Studio Fullness Board with printed checklist + crisis script.
  

• ⏳ By 13 Nov.
  

• Rehearse a team “red alert” response (cooling + breathing).
  

• ⏳ By 15 Nov.
  

• Track daily completion with a simple ✅ and optional short note (“state before/after”).
  

• ⏳ 10 Nov–6 Dec.
  

• During the winter break, keep one 5-min ritual (breath or vision).
  

• ⏳ 20 Dec–5 Jan.
  

🟠 Success markers (next 4 weeks)

• Faster state recovery from stress to focus (<2 min).
  

• Fewer backstage spikes and quicker physiological reset.
  

• More consistent energy and emotional stability throughout show days.
  

• Noticeably longer time spent in generative drive (creative and balanced state).
  

🟠 Closing note

You’ve already shown that these tools work under real pressure. Now it’s about making them small, simple, and automatic. Two 10-minute anchors a day are more powerful than a perfect session once a week. Keep building together — regulate, move, and recover as one team.

Axis Dance

Session summary Fullness Training

Axis Dance Company

📅 Date: 17th October 2025

🟠 Check-in highlights 

• Participants shared nuanced states beyond “good/tired,” including physical/mental fatigue, a “rough morning,” and feeling grounded after helpful physical therapy.

• Celebrations included: recent tour performances in Texas; productive community classes/workshops; new grant funding; presenting research at NDEO; growing support networks; feeling “at home” in the space; family milestones (e.g., niece’s straight A’s) and building closer relationships.

• Sleepless questions clustered around: global/political uncertainty; sustaining authenticity amid uncertainty; timing for high‑impact conversations (“before/after” dialogues); the role of regret; balancing self vs. others; and boundaries/kindness (“tough love”).

🟠 Today’s training focus

• Mirroring practice in pairs (with one trio), performed twice:

• Round 1: standard slow mirroring to one constant music track.

• Round 2: mirroring plus continuous tapping at the song’s alternate tempo (each partner maintains visible, synchronized tapping while moving).

• Pulse checks:

• Counted for 30 seconds after Round 1 and for 60 seconds after Round 2.

• Group pattern: most dancers’ heart rates decreased in Round 2 vs. Round 1 (after normalizing for the different count windows). Two dancers reported increases (having more fun / managing dual tasks).

🟠 What you perceived (verbatim‑style paraphrase)

• Self-experience:

• Tapping added task complexity/multitasking, shifting attention between self and partner.

• Some felt lighter/more engaged with tapping; others noted reduced precision due to divided focus.

• A few noticed anxiety/effort in keeping both tasks, raising arousal.

• Connection with partner:

• Many sensed joint problem-solving, “we’re in this together,” and at times greater connection under the shared constraint.

• Others felt connection dipped when precision decreased while managing the tap.

• Pulse counting vs. task focus:

• Music/pulse entrainment effects appeared (several tried to count to the beat instead of the pulse).

• Difficulty finding pulse surfaced for a few; normalization note: second count was 60s vs. 30s initially.

🟠 Neuro/Fullness angle (why this works)

• Adding a secondary rhythmic task (tapping/speaking/singing) during mirroring tends to:

• Down‑regulate sympathetic activation for most people (lower HR) by promoting rhythmic entrainment and attentional anchoring.

• Increase social attunement via shared goal + mild cognitive load, which can foster co‑regulation (“solving it together”).

• Music selection near ~60–70 BPM supports settling and alignment; the track used intentionally challenged maintaining the alternate tempo.

• Related phenomenon discussed: inter‑personal synchrony—shared stimuli and contact can promote heart‑rate alignment across people.

🟠 Protocol you can reuse (quick guide)

• Setup:

• Constant track (~60–70 BPM). Pair up (trio ok: one leads, two mirror; rotate quicker).

• Decide visible tapping limb (keep it consistent and visible to partner).

• Round A (2 min): slow mirroring only.

• Pulse A: count 30s.

• Round B (2 min): slow mirroring + synchronized tapping at the alternate tempo.

• Pulse B: count 60s (or also 30s if you want same window for easy comparison).

• Debrief (1 min): write three 1‑sentence reflections:

• Difference in you (tapping vs. no tapping).

• Difference in connection (tapping vs. no tapping).

• Difference between mirroring vs. pulse counting (attention/emotion/body).

🟠 Key takeaways for AXIS

• Rhythmic dual‑tasking can be a reliable pre‑rehearsal connector that also tends to settle the room.

• Precision may drop initially under load; the trade‑off often yields higher relational attunement.

• Normalize pulse‑count windows or estimate BPM to fairly compare rounds.

• Accessibility notes: sound proximity/feel matters; when needed, use visual tapping cues and adjust speaker placement.

🟠 Recommendations 

• Re-run the Mirroring + Tapping Protocol 2–3× weekly before rehearsal or class; track pre/post pulse for 30s each to compare like‑for‑like.

• Keep music near ~60–70 BPM; if beat is hard to feel, bring the speaker closer to the floor or provide a visual metronome.

• For trios, rotate leadership sooner (every ~45–60s) to keep all participants engaged.

• After each run, capture the three one‑liners (self / connection / attention) to build a team log of what helps co‑regulate fastest.

• When timing a before/after conversation, use an intentional dialogue frame: “I need an intentional dialogue with you; when is a good time within the next 24 hours?” (prepares both sides and reduces anticipatory stress).

• If pulse is hard to locate, teach carotid and radial palpation options and allow 10–15s practice before counting.